Birmingham, UK-headquartered housing developer St. Modwen plans to build up to 350 fully electric homes in Birmingham – on the MG Rover site that was once home to the MINI – and the development will pioneer smart grid technology.

The Longbridge, South Birmingham, homes will be powered by a smart grid, which is being developed with SNRG, a developer, installer, and operator of smart grid networks in the UK. SNRG was formed in 2018 with backing from Centrica, an energy services and solutions provider.

As SNRG explains, it “offers customers a ‘one-stop-shop’ for smart grid solutions comprising grid connections, distribution networks, solar PV panels, batteries, heat pumps, and community EV charging.”

St. Modwen asserts that this is the first time a major housing developer has used this particular smart grid approach with a fully electric housing development. The company expects to build the first new homes in Longbridge this fall.

The West Midlands Combined Authority, which is made up of 12 local authorities and three Local Enterprise Partnerships, provided a £20 million ($24.5 million) infrastructure investment for the fully electric site.

St. Modwen has already built its first sustainable housing units. Earlier in 2022, it launched two new carbon negative trial homes in Copthorne, West Sussex. The highly insulated homes there are designed to produce more energy than they consume and could reduce a household’s total energy bills by more than 50% when compared with a standard newly built home.

The Copthorne, West Sussex. trial homes are fitted with solar panels, a battery, an EV charger, an air-source heat pump, a smart hot water tank, heat recovery ventilation, and a wastewater heat recovery unit.

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